Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

A Letter

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

Harlan wanted her to be his wife!

What was she going to do? What did she want to do?

“Rose?”

She heard him coming up behind her. Quickly she sucked in several breaths of cool night air.

His fingers touched the back of her neck and she wilted inside.

“I know this is very sudden for you,” he murmured. “But please don’t say no.”

Her throat grew tighter. “Just what sort of marriage would this be?”

“What do you mean?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was such a strong, handsome man. A man made to love a woman. He didn’t need her for a wife. He needed someone who would be not only a companion and friend, but also his lover. If he didn’t realize that, she certainly did.

“I mean—” Oh, how could she do this? She turned to face him. “Are you expecting us…to have a sexual relationship?”

Dear Reader,

Love is always in the air at Silhouette Romance. But this month, it might take a while for the characters of May’s stunning lineup to figure that out! Here’s what some of them have to say:

“I’ve just found out the birth mother of my son is back in town. What’s a protective single dad to do?”—FABULOUS FATHER Jared O’Neal in Anne Peters’s My Baby, Your Son

“What was I thinking, inviting a perfect—albeit beautiful—stranger to stay at my house?”—member of THE SINGLE DADDY CLUB. Reece Newton, from Beauty and the Bachelor Dad by Donna Clayton

“I’ve got one last chance to keep my ranch but it means agreeing to marry a man I hardly know!”—Rose Murdock from The Rancher’s Bride by Stella Bagwell, part of her TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP miniseries

“Would you believe my little white lie of a fiancé just showed up—and he’s better than I ever imagined!” —Ellen Rhoades, one of our SURPRISE BRIDES in Myrna Mackenzie’s The Secret Groom

“I will not allow my search for a bride to be waylaid by that attractive, but totally unsuitable, redhead again!”—sexy rancher Rafe McMasters in Cowboy Seeks Perfect Wife by Linda Lewis

“We know Sabrina would be the perfect mom for us—we just have to convince Dad to marry her!”—the precocious twins from Gayle Kaye’s Daddyhood

Happy Reading!

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Rancher’s Bride
Stella Bagwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Charles and Denise, for their appreciation of the great West and its cowboys. Love ya.

STELLA BAGWELL

lives in the rural mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, where she enjoys the wildlife and hikes in the woods with her husband. She has a son, a wonderful daughter-in-law and a great passion for writing romances—a job she hopes to keep for a long time to come. Many of Stella’s books have been transcribed to audiotapes for the Oklahoma Library for the Blind. She hopes her blind audience, and all her readers, will continue to enjoy her stories.

Chapter One

Rose Murdock reined the sorrel alongside the fence and stared in shocked dismay. Each of the six strands of barbed wire had been cut, then carefully twisted back together.

Quickly, she stepped down from the saddle and examined the ground on both sides of the fence. The soil was crusty and dry from a drastic lack of rain. Even so, Rose managed to pick up the faint marks of hoof tracks. Too many to count!

Leading the sorrel, called Pie, behind her, she followed the tracks down a long slope of land until she reached the river. The hoof prints stopped at the watering hole, then turned and headed back the way she’d come from the cut wire.

Someone had cut the fence to water their cattle on Bar M land! Who would have done such a thing, then fixed the fence neatly back in place? The cattle were obviously not on her land now. She’d ridden out this whole pasture today and not seen one stray.

Sighing, Rose pushed the gray cowboy hat off her head. Its stampede string caught at the front of her neck, preventing the hat from falling further than the middle of her back.

Sweat glistened on the soft features of her face. She mopped it away with the back of her denim sleeve, then carefully scanned the horizon to the east.

Across the barbed wire fence lay Harlan Hamilton’s ranch, the Flying H. From what she could read of the tracks, the cattle had come from that direction. But she couldn’t imagine the man doing such a thing without notifying her or her sisters first. Open range in New Mexico had come to an end a long time ago. No one with any courtesy or respect would drive their cattle onto another rancher’s land without asking permission first.

But then, she didn’t really know Harlan Hamilton. At least, not personally. She’d seen him maybe three separate times, the last being almost a year ago when he’d stopped by the ranch to visit her late father, Tomas.

The two of them had been friends and Tomas had spoken highly of Harlan. Yet Rose had never done more than say a polite hello to the man. Not because she had anything against the rancher next door. Saying hello was as far as she went with any man.

Well, it looked as though more than a simple greeting was going to have to be said to him now, she decided. And unfortunately it looked as though she’d been picked for the job.

Rose mounted Pie and turned him in a northerly direction. For three miles or more she rode along the fence line until she reached two rock pillars flanking a metal gate. At the top of one pillar, the words Flying H Ranch were etched in black iron.

The gate didn’t appear to be locked so she opened it, led her horse through, then carefully closed it behind her. Back on Pie, Rose rode steadily down the dirt road that cut through the desert hills east of Hondo. Knee-high sage and piñon pine grew on either side of her. Now and then a choya stood in bloom, though she didn’t see how the plants were managing to survive, much less bloom in this drought that had lasted more than two months now.

As the horse trotted on, Rose grew more nervous. She’d already been sweating from the afternoon heat, but in the past few minutes, her hands had become slick with perspiration and her mouth was as dry as the fine dust stirred by the horse’s hooves.

She didn’t relish exchanging words with Harlan Hamilton. She wasn’t good around men. Not like her sister Justine, who’d just married the local sheriff. Nor was she like her younger sister, Chloe, who wasn’t afraid to look a man in the eye and speak her mind.

But Justine wasn’t here to do her talking for her and Chloe was back at the ranch with hardly enough time in the day to work the horses and take care of the twins.

No, she couldn’t ask either of her sisters to do this for her, Rose thought with grim determination. Since her father had died and money had grown tight, the cattle had become her responsibility. It was her job to confront trespassers, whomever they might be.

More than two more miles passed before Rose spotted the house in the distance. Like her own home, it was structured in stucco and sat wedged between a row of ragged poplars and a stand of piñon pine..

As Rose rode closer, she could see the place was neither large nor elaborate. The house needed painting and, other than the scrubby trees casting a few spots of flimsy shade, there were no flowers or grass or fence to declare a dividing line between yard and pasture.

Pie didn’t have to be tethered to stay put. Rose left him a few yards away from the house and walked slowly toward the porch. Through the screen door she could hear the sound of a television playing.

She was climbing the steps when a girl of twelve or thirteen opened the door and stepped onto the concrete porch. Her straight blond hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. Cutoff blue jeans covered part of her long, coltish legs; the rest of her thin adolescent figure was hidden beneath an oversize T-shirt. She looked at Rose as if visitors were an odd commodity on the Flying H.

“Hello,” Rose said. “Is Mr. Hamilton home?”

The girl gave a single nod of her head. “Daddy’s down at the barn.”

“Would it be all right if I walked down there to see him?”

The girl shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Rose turned to go, then a thought struck her and she looked back at the sullen teenager. “If your mother is in the house, she might be able to help me.”

“I don’t have a mother,” she said curtly, then went back into the house before Rose could make any sort of reply.

What a sad little girl, Rose thought. She hadn’t known that Harlan Hamilton had a child or that he was single. How long had he been without a wife and his daughter without a mother? she wondered.

As Rose approached the barn, she spotted the owner of the Flying H trying to coax a black yearling to follow a lead rope. The young horse was balking. Each time the man tugged on the rope, the animal stiffened its front legs and reared its head back.

Still unnoticed, Rose walked up to the wooden corral and stood quietly watching. Her neighbor was a big man. At least two inches past six feet, and she figured he weighed well over two hundred pounds. Faded jeans clung to his long strong legs and a gray chambray work shirt was stretched taut across his broad shoulders. He had a lean waist and large, menacing arms. Dark, almost black hair waved from beneath the straw cowboy hat on his head.

Normally Rose didn’t notice men in the physical sense. She had long ago lost her appetite for sex or romance, and what a man did or didn’t look like hardly mattered to her. But something about this man was urging her to take a closer look than usual.

The sight of a woman, a beautiful one at that, standing outside Harlan’s horsepen was more than a shock to his senses. Women didn’t visit the Flying H. As far as that went, hardly anyone ever came to see him or his daughter, Emily.

He dropped the yearling’s lead rope and slowly walked over to the fence where the woman stood. “Hello,” he said.

She extended her hand through the fence to him. “Hello, Mr. Hamilton. I’m Rose Murdock, your neighbor on the Bar M.”

Yes, Harlan remembered as his eyes skimmed over the long, chestnut braid lying against her right breast, her fair, faintly freckled skin and clear gray eyes. He’d been visiting Tomas one day and while they’d been looking over some of his racehorse stock, she’d approached the two of them to give her father a telephone message.

She’d barely spoken to Harlan that day, but he hadn’t felt slighted by her lukewarm greeting. He’d figured she’d taken him for a wrangler in need of work rather than a friend of her father’s. At the time, all three of the Murdock sisters had been single. But he’d read a few weeks ago where one of them had married Sheriff Pardee. An acquaintance of his had once made a joking remark that Harlan might enjoy a redhead cooking his meals and warming his bed. Harlan had ignored the suggestion. He didn’t want or need his bed warmed by a redheaded Murdock or any woman for that matter. One wife had been enough for him.

“So Miss Murdock, is this a social call or can I help you with something?”

The words “social call” brought a heated stain to Rose’s cheeks. “I don’t call on men socially. I’m here to talk to you about something I observed on the ranch awhile ago.”

Realizing he was still holding onto her hand, Harlan dropped it and motioned toward a piñon standing a few feet away. “Let’s get out of this sun,” he suggested, then stepped out of the corral and latched the gate behind him.

Her heart thudding with each step she took, Rose followed him to the flimsy shade. “I’m sorry to interrupt your work like this, Mr. Hamilton, but I—”

“There’s no need for you to call me Mr. Hamilton. My name is Harlan.”

Yes, she’d known his name was Harlan, but calling him by his first name was getting too personal for Rose’s taste. Still, she didn’t want to offend this man. He was her neighbor and he could make life hell for her and her sisters if he decided to be difficult.

Clearing her throat, she lifted her eyes to his face. Close up, she was immediately struck by the toughness of his features, his rough, leathery skin and hooded brown eyes. A shadow of unshaven beard darkened his chin and jaws, while sweat trickled from beneath his hatband and tracked down his temples.

“Well, Harlan,” she finally managed to say, “what I’m here about is the fence running between our properties. It’s been cut, and cattle have been herded from your pasture onto my pasture. Do you know anything about this?”

He remained silent for a long time and Rose eventually felt herself begin to wilt beneath his gaze. She could feel his eyes on her face, her lips, her bosom. Rose had never considered herself attractive to men and to have one look at her as blatantly as this was something she wasn’t quite ready to deal with.

“I suppose I should have said something to you or your family before I cut the fence. But I didn’t have any idea you’d be riding horseback that far away from your ranch.”

Rose stared at him with wide eyes. “I have to ride fence just like you do, Mr. Hamilton. And for you to take it for granted that a certain part of our boundary fence would be ignored is, well—it’s insulting.”

“I told you to call me Harlan,” he said with a sudden flare of his nostrils. “And as for the fence, I might remind you that your father and I were equal partners building it.”

Rose hadn’t any idea the man had contributed toward the fence. She’d thought the Bar M had shouldered all the labor and expense. Embarrassed by her ignorance, Rose glanced away from him. “I wasn’t aware of that. But I was concerned when I found the cut wires. There wasn’t any way of my knowing you’d done it.”

He grimaced. “Believe me, Miss Murdock, I didn’t get any enjoyment in tearing down the fence. But I hardly had any choice in the matter. I’m in bad need of water over here, and before your father died, he gave me permission to use the river on your land.”

Surprised by his admission, she said, “Surely the river runs through your property, too.”

“Only parts of it. The pasture where I cut the wire has nothing but a pond and it dried up two weeks ago.”

“I know it’s been dry but—”

“Dry! It’s been hell for the past two months! There’s plenty of people around here who are hurting for water. We just aren’t as blessed as you Murdocks.”

Blessed! He didn’t know the half of it, Rose thought a little angrily. Their father had died and left them a pile of debts, then they’d discovered that the twin babies abandoned on their front porch were really their half brother and sister. Their father apparently had had an affair with a woman in Las Cruces while their invalid mother had lain dying. And to make matters worse, he’d been sending his mistress an exorbitant amount of money every month. Tomas Murdock’s lack of morals and common sense had left Rose, her sisters and aunt in dire straits. No, this man didn’t know the half of it!

“We aren’t exactly overflowing with water ourselves, Mr.—Harlan. The river is very low.”

“At least there’s water in it.”

“Yes. It’s still running,” she had to agree.

“Then I think the least you and your sisters can do is share.”

Her brows shot upward. “Share?”

He frowned. “I don’t know why you find that so incredible. I mean, it’s been a year and I haven’t seen a cent from you people. I realize Tomas passed on, but that doesn’t mean his debts can be ignored.”

“Debts?”

In the back of her mind, Rose knew she was beginning to sound like a parrot, but she couldn’t help it. This man was tossing remarks at her that she couldn’t begin to understand.

Harlan recognized genuine confusion when he saw it. This woman with her smooth, creamy skin and shiny chestnut hair knew nothing of what he was talking about.

“I’m…” he paused as he glanced over his shoulder at the yearling trotting around the dusty corral. “If you’ll pardon me a minute, I’ll let the yearling loose and we’ll go up to the house and talk.”

Rose had already been in this man’s company far longer than she’d wanted or expected to be.

“Can’t you say whatever it is you have to say now? I came over here on horseback, and it’s going to take me awhile to get back home as it is.”

Surprise lifted his dark brows. “You rode over here?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “Is something wrong? Have your horses been quarantined for sleeping sickness or something?”

He shook his head. “No. There’s no problem like that,” he assured her but didn’t go on to explain that she looked far too fragile and feminine to have ridden several miles in this searing heat. “And you don’t have to worry about riding back home,” he told her. “I can haul you and your horse to the Bar M.”

She unconsciously straightened her shoulders. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Well, we’ll see,” he said, then went to tend to the yearling.

Once he was finished, the two of them walked the short distance to the house. At the back, they crossed a groundlevel porch, then entered a door which took them directly into a small kitchen.

Dirty dishes were piled in the sink and the remnants of where a meal had been cooked still littered the stove, but the oval Formica table standing in the middle of the room had been cleared and wiped.

Harlan motioned for Rose to take a seat. “We have iced tea or soft drinks if you’d like,” he offered.

As Rose pulled out a chair, she immediately started to decline the drink, then suddenly thought better of it. She’d been out in the heat for several hours and had only stopped to drink from her thermos a couple of times. Keeling over with heatstroke was the last thing she wanted to do in front of this man.

“Iced tea would be nice,” she told him.

He fixed two glasses of the drink, gave one to Rose, then placed the other one at the end of the table to her left.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Feeling more than awkward, she watched him leave the room. The television was still playing somewhere in another part of the house. Rose supposed Harlan’s daughter was watching it and as her gaze wandered around the untidy kitchen, she couldn’t help but think the girl was like the yearling he’d been working with earlier. She probably balked at doing anything except what she wanted.

Rose had taken several sips of the cold, sweetened tea when Harlan returned with a folded white paper in his hand.

After taking a seat, he handed her the document. “Before we talk anymore about the water, I think you need to see this.”

Rose’s heart was suddenly pattering out of control, but whether it was reacting to Harlan’s closeness or the dread of what she was about to read, she wasn’t sure.

Praying her hands would remain steady, she unfolded the legal-size document and quickly scanned the typewritten paragraphs. By the time she reached the end of the page every last drop of blood had drained from her face. A sick feeling roiled in her stomach.

“This is—unbelievable!” she said in a voice hardly above a whisper.

“Believe me, Miss Murdock, it’s legal and binding.”

Rose lifted her eyes to his. “I’m not doubting its authenticity,” she quickly assured him. “I’m talking about my father—”

Biting down on her lip, she looked away from him. How could Tomas have done such a thing to his family, she wondered sickly. First that woman—his mistress, whom they still hadn’t been able to track down! For all they knew she might turn up any day and demand more money, or even worse, her babies back. Now this!

Forcing her gaze back to him, she said, “I must tell you Mr.—Harlan, my sisters and I knew nothing of this. We’re, well, actually we’re finding that our father kept a good many things from us while he was alive. But this is—I can’t imagine what he was thinking!”

Harlan could see she was clearly wounded by the knowledge that her father had borrowed money from him and used the Bar M as collateral. Hell, if his old man had done such a thing to him, he’d be more than wounded, Harlan thought. He’d be wanting to draw blood.

“Did he tell you why he wanted the money?” Rose asked. “Why did he come to you rather than go to the bank?”

The pain in her gray eyes bothered Harlan. He looked away from her as his forefinger unconsciously slid up and down the side of the cold, sweaty glass.

“He didn’t say exactly what he wanted the money for and I didn’t ask. Tomas was my friend. When I first moved onto this place, he helped me while others didn’t bother to offer. Your father didn’t have to tell me why he needed the money. I was just glad to be able to help him out. As to why he came to me rather than the bank, well—” Harlan shrugged and forced himself to look at Tomas’s daughter. “I got the impression he didn’t want to have to do any explaining and that maybe he had already borrowed to the hilt.”

It didn’t surprise Rose that this man was so intuitive. There was something about his strong presence that told her he’d done, seen and lived a lot in his thirty-some years. He was no man’s fool.

Rose’s fingers tightened on the promissory note in her hands. “Daddy was—we used his life insurance to pay off his debts. At least, the ones we were aware of. Are you— calling us in on this?”

Harlan glanced at her sharply. She seemed to expect the very worst from him. Was she always so negative? Or was she only reacting that way to him?

“Why, no. I’m not calling you in on the loan.”

She felt sick with relief. “That’s hard to believe.”

Her eyes were full of moisture. She blinked them several times as she looked at the paper in her hands. Harlan suddenly felt like a bastard, although he didn’t know why. When he’d loaned Tomas Murdock money, he’d done it to help the older man, not jeopardize his ranch or his family.

“I’m not a loan shark.”

With slow, jerky movements, Rose refolded the paper and lay it on the table a few inches from Harlan Hamilton’s tough, tanned fingers. “That’s obvious. The payment has been overdue for some time now and you haven’t notified or billed us. Why?”

Harlan wasn’t really sure why. It wasn’t as if he was set for money. Since the drought had hit, he could use the thousands he’d lent Tomas. Even in the cooler season of the year, the Flying H needed water wells drilled. But he’d been loathe to collect the debt.

“I knew Tomas had died. And I figured you and your sisters had plenty on your minds as it was.”

Rose never had had a high opinion of men, and over the past few months since she’d learned of her daddy’s infidelities, she’d lost even more respect for the male gender. To think that this man had considered her and her family’s grief before himself was hard for Rose to digest.

“I must tell you…at the present, there’s no way we could find the money to pay you back. Even if we sold the last head of cattle we had, we couldn’t come up with what our father borrowed from you.”

She was telling the truth. Harlan could see that plainly. He could also see that Rose Murdock was not a frivolous woman. She was plainspoken and no-nonsense. What surprised him about her admission was that the Bar M could be that drained of funds.

Harlan had lived here for seven years. His neighbors to the west owned the largest ranch in the county, perhaps one of the largest in the whole state of New Mexico. They raised good cattle and even better horses. They had plenty of rich grazing land along the Hondo river and several skilled cowboys to take care of it all. But what she’d just said about repaying the loan and the fact that she’d been line riding herself told Harlan things had changed drastically on the Bar M.

The whole idea was hard for Harlan to absorb, but not nearly as hard, he figured, as it was for Rose Murdock. “I’m not worried about you paying me back right now.”

Nerves clenched her stomach like a vice. “You should be.”

“I need water more than I need money.”

He took off his battered straw hat and ran a hand through his hair. It was the color of sable and just as shiny. Worn a bit longer than the current fashion, the dark strands fell haphazardly across his forehead and curled around his ears and neck. The front of his shirt was soiled and a large patch of sweat had soaked through the gray material in the middle of his chest. Rose thought he looked a bit like she’d imagined the cowhands did who worked this land when it was still a wild, dangerous territory. Rough, tough and just a little reckless.

“I can’t understand you,” she said. “You have the power right there—” she pointed at the piece of paper “—to take the Bar M. It could legally be yours now if you wanted to push the issue.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t want to take your home away from you.”

Suddenly it was all too much for Rose. Pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead, she closed her eyes and let out a long, weary sigh.

“I came over here,” she said, “to ask you about a simple cut in the fence. Instead, I learn that the Bar M owes you several thousand dollars!” Opening her eyes, she turned her gaze to his face. “You could have at least warned us about this!”

She sounded both accusing and defeated. Harlan wanted to comfort her somehow but realized there wasn’t much he could do. He couldn’t tell her to simply forget the loan, that he would dissolve her father’s debt. The money had been a big part of Harlan’s savings. He’d worked, scrimped and sacrificed for years to obtain that much money. He couldn’t afford to give it away, no matter how bad he felt for this woman.

Draining half his tea, he ran his hand through his hair again, then got to his feet and moved to the other side of the room. He’d never had a woman in his kitchen before. His wife had died before he and Emily had moved to New Mexico. The sight of Rose Murdock sitting at the table with her hat hanging against her back, her light red hair curling wildly about her face and her small breasts jutting against her denim shirt was more than a little distracting for him.

“I’m sure this was the last thing you expected or wanted to hear,” he said, moving over to the sink filled with dirty dishes. “And I wish like hell your father had never borrowed the money in the first place.”

“But he did,” Rose said quietly. She looked over at him as he turned on the tap and squirted soap over the mound of plates and glasses. “How soon will you need a payment?”

“It isn’t necessary to discuss the money part of it now. I’d rather talk about water.”

This man literally had the Bar M in his hands if he wanted it, yet he chose not to move in for the kill. Rose couldn’t believe he was being so bighearted. What was he doing, waiting like a hawk for his prey to weaken?

“How can we help you?”

His back turned to Rose, he said, “You can open up part of your land to me.”

Chapter Two

Of the three Murdock sisters, Rose had always been the quiet, levelheaded one. She was sweet tempered and rarely ever showed an outward display of emotion. But the shock of Harlan’s words shot her to her feet. “Open our land to you?”

Harlan glanced over his shoulder. Her breasts were heaving and her hands were fluttering helplessly at her sides. He could see she was struggling not to be upset, but the flash in her gray eyes and the quaver in her voice told him she was losing the battle to hold on to her emotions.

“Back in east Texas my friends told me I was crazy to move out here on the New Mexico desert But I’ve come to love this place and I don’t want to lose it, or my cattle.” He turned and leveled his dark eyes on her. “I expect you’d rather let me use a pasture with water than meet the stipulations of your daddy’s loan.”

Something about this rancher made Rose forget to keep her distance. With a boldness that was completely foreign to her nature, she marched over to within a step of him.

“Are you threatening me? Is that what this is all about?”

Suddenly there was a comical twist of frustration on his face. “Look, Rose, if I’d wanted to take your home away from you I could have done it legally several months ago! I’m not a vulture. I’m just a man trying to make a living. All I’m asking for is a little help from the Bar M. And under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

Of course he had every right to ask for water. In fact, Rose knew she should be down on her knees thanking God that Harlan Hamilton wasn’t demanding more. Still, the idea of opening the ranch to someone else was like inviting a stranger into her bedroom. The Bar M had been Murdock land for more than forty years. No one had so much as leased a foot of it, or even walked across it. Each section of pasture was like a room in the ranch house. She didn’t want interlopers in her home.

With a surrendering shake of her head, Rose said, “No, you’re not asking too much. But I must tell you I’m in the same situation you are, Harlan. What bit of grass I have left is burning and I need it for my own cattle.”

Harlan wasn’t a man to take advantage of anyone who happened to be down on their luck, and that included a beautiful woman. But at the moment he was having tough luck of his own.

“I can understand that. But I need water wells drilled and pumps installed. Doing that takes lots of money. Money that I loaned to Tomas,” Harlan replied. “I have no intention of going into debt, and I’m not going to sell my cattle. If it makes you feel any better, you can count the use of your water as the first payment on the loan.”

Rose was backed into a corner with no way out. She had no choice but to let him have what he asked for and hope and pray his wants would stop there.

Squaring her shoulders, she jammed her hat back on her head, then tugged the brim down on her forehead. “I’m not a difficult woman, Harlan, nor am I foolish. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the boundary fence and we’ll decide what to do with your cattle and mine. Now I should be heading home before dark catches me.”

She turned to go. Harlan immediately called her back.

“If you galloped all the way back to the Bar M you couldn’t beat the dark. I’ll take you.”

“My horse—”

“The stock trailer is already hooked onto the truck. It won’t be any problem to take you both home.”

If it wasn’t for Pie stepping on a sidewinder in the dark, she would have insisted on riding back alone. She didn’t want to climb into a vehicle with this man. In fact, if she didn’t get away from him soon, she was certain she’d never be able to breathe properly again.

“Very well,” she conceded.

Harlan walked over to an open doorway leading to other parts of the house. “Emily?”

A few moments passed before the teenager appeared in the doorway. “You wanted me?” she asked her father.

Harlan introduced his daughter to Rose, then added, “I’m going to drive Miss Murdock back home. Would you like to come with us?”

The girl threw a suspicious glance at Rose. “No.”

Harlan sighed. “You haven’t been off the place for several days. It would do you good to get out of the house, Emily.”

Having been a schoolteacher the past five years had taught Rose many things about children. She knew that underneath petulance was usually a need for attention or love. As for Emily, there was a sad, depressed look about the girl that tugged at Rose’s heart.

“I know what the Murdock place looks like,” Emily said with a toss of her head.

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” Harlan said to her, “then I expect you to have this kitchen clean by the time I get back.”

The bored look on the girl’s face suddenly turned indignant. “But, Daddy,” she protested. “I’ll miss my program and—”

“No buts. You didn’t want to go, so stay here and make yourself useful. And turn that darn TV off. If I come back and hear it on, it’s going to stay off for a week.”

Turning to Rose, he nodded toward the door leading to the back porch. “If you’re ready, let’s go.”

Rose looked at the teenage girl. “Goodbye, Emily. I hope we meet again, soon.”

For a moment, Rose thought Harlan’s daughter was going to rebuff her but then a faint smile crossed the girl’s thin face.

“Goodbye, Rose.”

Once the two of them were outside the house, Harlan said, “I hope you’ll overlook Emily’s rudeness. She’s been in one of her moods lately.”

“I used to be a schoolteacher, so I’m accustomed to teenagers’ moods,” Rose replied.

They rounded the house and Rose was relieved to see that Pie was only a few steps away from where she’d left him. She reached for the horse’s reins, but Harlan immediately took them from her. As he led the horse toward the barn Rose followed him. The sun was already down and shadows were lengthening on the dry, cracked ground beneath their feet. While they walked, Rose kept her eyes on the dusty toes of her boots.

“You say you were a teacher. Does that mean you’ll not be teaching when school begins in September?”

“The ranch needs me now,” she said frankly.

Harlan glanced over at her downcast head. Things were obviously much worse at the Bar M than he’d expected and that worried him for more reasons than one.

A few minutes later they were traveling west across Flying H land. The evening air was beginning to cool. Rose removed her hat so that the breeze coming through the open cab would blow her hair.

As the ranch house disappeared behind them, Rose couldn’t help but wonder if Harlan’s daughter was cleaning the kitchen or watching TV. Did her daddy spoil her, misunderstand her, love her? The questions pestered her until she finally said, “It must be a very quiet life for Emily during the summer months. Does she do any activities with friends her age?”

“Sometimes. But it’s not exactly easy for me to drive her into Ruidoso for entertainment.”

“I understand. We live a long way from town, too, you know.”

She was hugging the door. Her hands were folded primly on her lap, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Each time Harlan glanced her way she remained as stiff as when they’d first left the house.

“I don’t think Emily’s problem is all boredom. The way you saw her is pretty much how she’s been for the past year. At first I thought it was her age. But now I’m not so sure.”

Rose never encouraged conversation with single men. She found it usually led to awkward situations. Especially when the man insisted on getting personal. But she couldn’t remain indifferent to Harlan. With his long, lean body sitting only inches away, his earthy, masculine scent swirling around her, she was more aware of him than she could ever remember being of any man.

“How long has your daughter been without her mother?”

A grimace marred his face. “You know she doesn’t have a mother?”

Rose nodded, then quickly explained, “When I came to your house I asked Emily if I could speak with you or her mother. She told me she didn’t have a mother.”

“She can be blunt at times.” Harlan downshifted the truck and stopped as the dirt road they’d been traveling intersected with the main highway. Glancing at her, he added, “Karen died when Emily was going on seven years old. She’s thirteen now.”

Pulling onto the oozy asphalt, Harlan headed west toward the foot of the mountains and the Bar M ranch.

Three miles passed before Rose could think of a reply. She said, “That’s a long time for a child to be without a mother.”

Harlan let out a snort. “I damn well didn’t choose it that way.”

The sharpness of his voice swung Rose’s gaze around to him. His profile was hard and unmoving, making it obvious to her that he was still bitter over losing his wife.

But that wasn’t her problem, Rose quickly reminded herself. Nor was his sullen daughter. The Bar M was drowning in debt, and if he had a mind to, this man sitting next to her could push her the rest of the way under.

Dear God, how was she going to tell her sisters, Chloe and Justine, and her Aunt Kitty that Tomas had borrowed several thousand dollars and put the ranch up as collateral? Just thinking about it left her numb with fear.

“I’m sure you didn’t choose to lose your wife,” Rose said quietly.

Harlan rubbed a hand over his face. “I thought you meant—” He turned his head and his eyes searched her face. “Some people think I’m being cruel to Emily by not marrying again. I figured you were thinking the same thing. Were you?”

Rose couldn’t believe they were having this discussion. She didn’t even know this man. She didn’t want to know him. But each passing minute seemed to be showing her another slice of his personality.

A faint frown drew her dark auburn brows together. “I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to advise you about your family life, Mr.—Harlan.”

A quirk of humor moved his lips. “I wasn’t asking for your advice. I was asking what you thought.”

“Why?”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

He’d mentioned east Texas and from the sound of his drawl, Rose figured he must have grown up in that part of the country. She couldn’t deny the soft lilt of his voice did pleasant things to her senses.

“Why do you want to know what I think? You don’t even know me.”

Shrugging, he fixed his eyes on the darkening highway. “It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to a woman and since Emily is a girl, well, I sometimes wonder if I can see things the way you females do.”

“Have you met a woman you’d like to marry?”

He cast her a dry glance, then suddenly burst out with a short laugh. “Rose, there isn’t a woman on earth I’d want to marry.”

His mocking attitude stiffened her spine to a rigid line of indignation. There wasn’t a man on earth she’d want to marry either, but she didn’t go around telling any of them such a thing. She didn’t like men, but that hardly made her want to insult them.

“Then I think it best you stay single and—forget about what your friends say.”

The little grin he gave her said she’d spoken the very words he’d wanted to hear. “You know, Rose, I think you’re gonna be my kind of woman.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Rose was back home on the Bar M unsaddling Pie in the dimly lit stables. As she jerked on the worn latigo, Harlan’s words continued to gnaw at her craw.

His kind of woman.

She’d wanted to reach across the seat and slap his face. She, who had trouble bringing her boot down on a scorpion, wanted to commit an act of physical violence against another human being! What had come over her?

With a tired grunt, she swung the saddle over the top rail of the empty stall, then slapped the bridle across the seat.

“Rose?”

At the sound of the female voice, Rose turned to see Chloe standing a few steps behind her. Like her sisters, she was a redhead—although her straight, shoulder length hair was a much deeper auburn than that of her siblings. And unlike Rose and Justine, Chloe was petite. But her temper and strength made up for her small stature. At the moment she was frowning with concern.

“Is something wrong?”

Rose forced herself to breathe deeply. The last thing she wanted was for Chloe to think a man had gotten under her sister’s skin.

“I’m just hot and tired.”

Chloe moved closer, her eyes wandering keenly over Rose’s flushed face. “You’re hot and tired when you come in every evening, but you don’t always look like you’ve been tangling with a bull.”

A bull? Well, Harlan certainly had a few similarities to one, she couldn’t help thinking.

“Are you finished here?” Rose glanced down the long line of compartments to see if all the horses were back in their stalls. “We need to go up to the house and talk.”

“Talk? What’s happened now?”

A year ago, Chloe would never have responded with such a negative question. Their father had still been alive then, the ranch, or so it had appeared to her and her sisters, had been thriving and rain had continued to keep the grass growing right up until frost.

But this summer nothing had seemed to go right and Rose supposed Chloe’s usually bright outlook had finally started crumbling under the problems they’d been forced to face. As for herself, Rose was very nearly too numb to feel anything except a staggering weight on her shoulders.

“Let’s go find Aunt Kitty,” Rose said while nudging Chloe toward the open doorway of the stable. “I only want to have to tell this story once.”

Back at the house, the sisters entered an overly warm kitchen to find Kitty, a petite woman in her sixties with short gray hair. She was setting the table and didn’t stop to look at her nieces. “It’s almost ready, girls. Go wash and get the twins from the playpen. Their baby food is heating.”

Minutes later, gathered around the dining table, Chloe took on the job of feeding Anna, while Rose assumed the task of feeding Adam. The twins were eight months old and starting to cut teeth. For the past week both babies had been fussy with sore gums. But tonight they appeared to be in better humor. Rose was relieved. She adored her little brother and sister and couldn’t bear to see them in any sort of pain.

“Okay Rose, tell us what happened today,” Chloe said as she offered a spoon of pureed green beans to Anna. “You found another dead cow while you were riding fence?”

“For heaven’s sake, what now?” Kitty asked wearily.

Rose decided it would do no good to delay the telling. “The fence between us and the Flying H has been cut and cattle herded onto our land.”

“What?” Chloe practically yelled the question.

Totally bewildered, Kitty asked, “Who would have done such a thing?”

“I rode over to the Flying H and confronted Harlan Hamilton about it,” Rose told them. “He admitted that he’d done it.”

Chloe’s mouth fell open. Kitty simply stared at her niece.

When neither of them said anything, Rose made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Kitty asked with a puzzled frown.

“Like you’re wondering what gave the timid spinster enough courage to go see a man,” she said with disgust.

“Rose! None of us think of you as a timid spinster,” Chloe countered. “That’s your own way of thinking.”

Frustrated because she still couldn’t gather her nerves together, Rose closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she told the two women, “I’m still feeling sorta testy.”

Kitty and Chloe exchanged worried glances. Rose never felt testy over anything—quietly concerned maybe, but never angry or irritated.

“Why? What happened between you and our neighbor?” Chloe asked.

“Like I said, I went to see him. I didn’t want to, but I made myself.” Rose offered Adam a spoonful of pureed chicken. The baby smacked his lips in appreciation. “And I guess it’s a good thing I did, or we might have—”

“What?” Kitty prompted when Rose stopped in midsentence.

“You’re not going to believe what he showed me.”

“His naked chest?” Chloe asked dryly.

Rose shot her sister a cool look of disapproval. “The man is running out of water.”

“So are a lot of other people around here,” Kitty spoke up. “Why, Vida was just telling me yesterday they were having to haul their drinking water from Ruidoso.”

“So is that why Mr. Hamilton cut our fence and drove his cattle onto our land? To give them a drink?” Chloe asked in disbelief. “I can’t really see what good that was going to do. Cattle have to have water every day. Or—” She looked at her sister with raised eyebrows. “He didn’t leave them on our land, did he?”

Rose shook her head. “No, he didn’t leave them on our land, but he intends for us to—” She couldn’t go on. Her throat closed around the words, forcing her to swallow several times before she could speak. “He wants us to open up the Bar M to him so that his cattle can reach our part of the river.”

The two women stared at Rose in stunned silence, then finally Chloe burst out laughing.

“You know, I always wondered why that man was single,” she said once her laughter had trailed away to a chuckle. “He’s got looks to die for, but apparently he doesn’t have a brain to go with them.”

“Just hush, Chloe, you haven’t heard it all,” Rose scolded wearily.

“You mean there’s more?”

Adam was banging his fist on the high-chair tray. Rose quickly pushed another spoonful of food at the baby.

“Oh, yes. It seems that several months ago, more than a year to be exact, our father borrowed money from Harlan Hamilton.”

“No!” Kitty said with a sharp gasp.

The humor suddenly vanished from Chloe’s face. “How much?”

Rose repeated the amount and once again the two women stared blankly at her.

“The worst part is,” Rose continued, “Daddy put the Bar M up as collateral.”

Chloe rocketed to her feet. “He couldn’t have! He wouldn’t have!”

Her face stiff, Rose said, “He did. Harlan has it on document. And I’ll assure you it was all very legal.”

“You mean, if we don’t or can’t repay Mr. Hamilton, the ranch could belong to him?” Kitty asked fearfully.

Rose nodded. “That’s just about the size of it.”

“So what are we going to do?” Chloe asked sinkingly. “If we sell our stock there’s no way the ranch can make money!”

Adam began pushing away the offered spoon, indicating to Rose he was full. She wiped the baby’s face and hands, then began filling her own plate. She wasn’t going to let what her father had done, or what Harlan might do, ruin her supper.

“We’re going to open up our land to Mr. Hamilton and hope that he’ll be patient about the loan. Right now, he says water is the only thing he wants from us,” Rose told the two women.

Like a fallen rock Chloe dropped back into her chair. “Oh Rose, you’re so gullible where men are concerned. You haven’t been around them enough to know they’ll tell you anything that suits them—no matter how far from the truth it is.”

Rose leveled a dark look at her sister. “Oh, I think you know I learned all about men a long time ago, Chloe. That’s exactly why I stay away from them. But as for Harlan— we have no choice but to trust him. He’s holding all the cards.”

Chloe sagged against the back of her chair.

Kitty looked at Rose. “What do you think about this Mr. Hamilton, Rose? Do you think he can be trusted?”

Did she? Since her ordeal with Peter more than eight years ago, Rose had never trusted any man, except her father. And even that had turned out to be a mistake. She’d be a fool to believe Harlan was sincere. Yet for some reason she wanted to think he was different from the rest, that maybe he was one of those few men like her sister’s husband, Roy Pardee. An honest man with morals and a good heart.

“I don’t know, Aunt Kitty. I found out he’s a widower with a teenage daughter. He appears to be a responsible man and father, but who’s to say? We thought Daddy was a responsible man and father.”

“Tomas must have been a very troubled man to do what he did. Having an affair with that woman, paying her all that money and now this! I just thank God my sister Lola isn’t alive to know about it.” Kitty shook her head sadly. “So what’s going to happen next?”

Rose took a long drink of ice water. She’d never felt so exhausted in her life and to think of getting up and facing Harlan in the morning was nearly more than she could bear.

“First thing tomorrow I’m going to meet Harlan at the cut in the fence and we’re going to decide what to do about the cattle. As for the money, I’m sure you both know we don’t have it and there’s no chance we will have it for a long time to come. He says his use of our water will count for a payment on the loan. I don’t know how much money that means, but I’ll find out.”

The kitchen went quiet, except for the babies, who were squealing and straining to grab the other’s face across their high-chair trays.

Rose finished the food on her plate, then lifted Adam into her arms. The baby nuzzled his head against her neck and she savored his innocent affection. The twins were the only good thing to come out of this mess their father had made. And whether the law ever managed to track down their mother or not, the whole family was determined to keep them and raise them as true Murdocks. “I’m going to give Adam a bath and get ready for bed. Will one of you call Justine and tell her the news?”

Kitty nodded solemnly. “I will. Maybe Roy might have some idea that could help us.”

“Roy’s a good sheriff, but I don’t think he can help us out of this mess,” Rose said, then turned to leave the kitchen.

“Rose,” Chloe called after her.

Rose turned to look at her younger sister. “Would you rather I met Mr. Hamilton in the morning?”

She and Chloe had always been opposites. Chloe was normally bubbly and outspoken and very self-confident, whereas Rose was just quiet, old Rose. Yet there had always been a deep love between them and Rose could feel it now more than ever.

“Thanks for offering, Chloe, but this is—well, it’s something I have to do myself. After Daddy died we agreed that the horses were your responsibility and the cattle mine. I’m not going to run from my job just because I don’t like dealing with a man.”

“We never said we couldn’t help each other out, if the other needed it,” Chloe said gently.

A wan smile touched Rose’s face. “I know. But oddly enough Harlan Hamilton doesn’t scare me. It’s just that— there’s something about the man that bothers me.” Adam tugged on a loose tendril of her hair. Rose absently kissed the baby’s cheek. “But I can put up with him for as long as it takes to get this ranch back to a solid business again. And I’m making a promise right now. Harlan Hamilton is never going to own the Bar M.”

Chapter Three

Long before Rose reached the faint bend in the river, Harlan spotted her on the sorrel. From the hill where he sat on his black mare he watched and waited for her to ride closer.

She was dressed as she had been yesterday in a pair of worn jeans, brown boots and a gray felt hat. The only difference was her shirt. This one was deep green and buttoned tightly at the cuffs and throat.

Last night after he’d taken the woman home, he’d found it nearly impossible to stop thinking about her and he couldn’t figure why. True, she had a quiet, natural beauty. But he’d seen plenty of good-looking women since Karen had died and none of them had stirred him in any way. Yet there was something about Rose Murdock that made him itch in all the wrong places.

Nudging the mare’s sides, he decided to ride down the slope to meet her and the spotted blue dog trotting at her heels.

“Good morning,” she said as he stopped abreast of her.

“Good morning,” he drawled.

She shifted in the saddle as his dark brown eyes scanned her face. She didn’t know why the man had to look at her like he enjoyed it. She was too thin to have much of a figure and her features were sharp and angular. The only nice things about her were full lips and gray luminous eyes. But in Rose’s opinion nothing about her warranted a second glance.

“I’ve talked with my family about letting you use some of the ranch,” she said to him.

“And?”

And? Did he honestly think they were in a position to refuse him? Rose wondered. She said, “Of course they’re in agreement. They’re leaving it up to me and you to decide which parts of the land would work best for all of us.”

“I’m glad they understand my problem.”

Rose came close to groaning out loud. His problem? All he needed was a little water. She and her sisters needed a miracle.

“My sisters and I would like to know how much money you’re willing to allow us for our water,” she told him.

He studied her for a moment, then named an amount that Rose considered surprisingly generous.

“I think that’s more than fair,” she said awkwardly as her eyes skittered away from his tough face.

Looks to die for. That’s the way Chloe had described him. Rose didn’t know about that, but she knew whenever she looked at him she couldn’t think or breathe or do anything but gawk like a naive teenager. Her reaction to him was downright silly. But she didn’t know how to stop it.

Harlan motioned toward the section of land they were presently on. “I have a hundred head to graze and water. Can this spot do that? It’s the closest one to me and the most feasible one to use. Or do you have cattle in here now?”

She nodded. “Fifty head. But I can move them.”

“That’s a lot of trouble.”

It was. But she was getting pretty used to dealing with trouble. First they found babies abandoned on the doorstep, then they discovered their father had been blackmailed by the mother into making exorbitant payments, and now this loan to Harlan Hamilton. Rose couldn’t imagine what else might turn up as a result of their father’s reckless behavior.

“There’s no other choice,” Rose told him.

“Where is your open pasture?” he asked.

Her eyes flickered back to Harlan. The gold of the morning sun was rising behind him, outlining his thick shoulders, the rolled brim of his black hat and the dark curls lying against his neck. He looked like a moonlighter, something the old men of the west called a cattle thief. Could she trust him with her cattle? Her land? Herself?

“Several miles from here.”

Rubbing his unshaved jaws, he thoughtfully studied the land spread to the west of them. The river was dry in spots, but in other places the water was deep and cool. If heaven had a name, the Bar M had to be it, he thought.

“I see you didn’t bring a wrangler with you,” he said to Rose.

Her eyes on Pie’s tangled mane, she said, “I don’t have a wrangler. I’m it.”

Harlan couldn’t have been more stunned if Queen, his mare, had suddenly started bucking sky-high. This woman was taking care of several thousand acres of land and cattle on her own? No. He couldn’t believe it.

“I’m not saying this because I think you’re incompetent, but I just don’t believe…” He broke off with a shake of his head. “Surely you have help of some kind.”

She combed her fingers through Pie’s long mane, then patted his neck. The horse was her help, her companion, her very best buddy. These days she spent more time with him than she did anyone.

“Pie here is my help. And Amos my heeler,” she motioned toward the dog, waiting quietly at her horse’s hocks. “Believe me, he’s a lot better than a handful of lazy wranglers.”

He looked skeptically at her, the sorrel and the scroungy dog. “I’m sure he’s a good horse and the dog is no doubt trained to work cattle, but—”

“You don’t have a hired hand, do you?” she interrupted.

“Well, no, but my ranch is half the size of yours.”

She lifted her chin proudly. Not for anything would she let him know how exhausted she was by the end of the day, how weary she was when she rose before dawn to start all over again. Some days she didn’t know if she could take another step. But the idea of losing her home drove her on.

“It takes a little more effort. We have someone to cut and bale our alfalfa for us and of course we have to have a farrier over pretty often to shoe Chloe’s horses, but other than that we pretty much do things for ourselves.”

What would Tomas think if he knew how hard his daughters were working? Harlan wondered. And what had happened to get the place in such shape? Tomas himself? Or had his daughters high-rolled all their money away?

“I know last night you implied things were tight. I didn’t realize you meant—well, I hadn’t heard you’d let all your hired help go.”

If that was the case, then he probably hadn’t heard about the twins, or her father’s sordid affair that had produced them. Rose couldn’t help but wonder what Harlan would think of his old friend when he did finally hear the story.

Rose glanced pointedly at the watch strapped to her wrist. “Well, if you’re ready, I think we’d better see if we can find my cattle and get them out of here. This might take awhile.”

“Not yet.”

Rose cut him a glance. “Why? What are you waiting for?”

“Emily is coming to help. In fact, she should be here any time now.” He reined Queen up the slope. “I’ll go see if I can spot her.”

Rose followed close behind him. “Emily knows about riding and herding cattle?”

He shot her a dry look over his shoulder. “Emily was born on a ranch back in east Texas and she’s lived on the Flying H for seven years. Like you, she knows what it’s all about.”

“You taught her?”

“It’s just me and her. I may come up short at being a stand-in mother, but as her daddy, I’ve taught her all the things I could. That may not seem like much to you, Rose, but…” he paused and shrugged, “someday it might help her.”

The two of them rode on to the top of the slope, then pulled their mounts to a stop. As they waited for Emily to appear, Rose considered what Harlan had just told her.

Teaching Emily about ranching was as much or more than what Tomas had taught her. She’d hate to imagine what sort of shape she and her sisters would be in now if they’d been raised as helpless females. Still, she couldn’t imagine not having a mother’s soft hand to wipe away a tear, brush her hair, help her pick out a dress for the junior high prom.

Rose had been devastated when she’d lost her own mother a little over a year ago. But at least she’d had her love and guidance while she’d been growing up. Emily had been robbed at a very vulnerable time in her life. Did Harlan realize that?

Only a minute or two passed before Emily came riding up on a big Appaloosa. Like Rose, she was dressed for riding in the sun and the brush. A smile on her face, she appeared to be much perkier this morning than she’d been last night.

“Good morning, Rose. I hope you don’t mind me tagging along. Daddy thought I might be a help.”

Rose smiled at the girl. “I’m very grateful that you’re going to help. Since I don’t have any wranglers anymore, it’ll just be us three and Amos.”

The teenager stared at Rose in pretty much the same way her father had. “You don’t have help on your ranch?”

“Not right now,” Rose told her. “We’ve had to do a little cutting back.”

Harlan wondered what it cost Rose to admit to having financial problems. The woman obviously had pride and he respected her for that. He also respected the fact that she hadn’t given up. She was working hard to keep her home together. If she had caused some of the money problems on the Bar M, she was certainly trying to make up for it now.

Wanting to lighten the moment he grinned at both women. “Too bad, honey,” he teased Emily. “There won’t be any young cowboys for you to show off for.”

Emily groaned and tossed her head. “Oh, Daddy, you know I don’t like boys.”

“Not yet, huh?” he said, then gave Rose a conspiratorial wink.

Rose couldn’t remember the last time a man had winked at her. Feeling her cheeks turning pink, she quickly reined Pie away from him. “We’d better get moving,” she said matter-of-factly.

Fortunately the Bar M cattle were feeding on a patch of prickly pear not far from the pasture Rose intended to move them into. With Amos barking and circling the herd, it wasn’t too difficult for the three of them to bunch the cattle in a tight wad.

Because of the heat, they moved the animals at a slow walk. Even so, fine dust boiled high in the air and covered the three of them. Rose pulled a handkerchief from her jeans pocket and rode over to Emily, who was coughing and waving her hand in front of her face.

“Do you want my handkerchief?” Rose asked her.

Her face brown from the flying dirt, Emily grinned with appreciation, but shook her head. “Thank you, Rose. But you should keep it for yourself. I’ll be all right.”

It was difficult for Rose to believe this was the same girl who had been whining about washing a sinkful of dishes. So far Emily hadn’t complained about anything. In fact, she was working just as hard as Rose to get the job done.

“Then why don’t you ride up toward the front of the herd?” Rose suggested to her. “It won’t be as dusty up there. Your father and I can watch things back here.”

Emily nodded and urged the Appaloosa forward. “Thanks, Rose!”

Rose tied the handkerchief over her nose and mouth, then swung in place a few yards away from Harlan at the back of the herd. She was surprised to see he was watching her.

What was he thinking, she wondered. That all of this would someday be his? Well, thinking was as close as he was ever going to get, she silently promised. She’d sell every last cow and calf on the place and beg every bank in the state before she’d lose this ranch to him, or any man.

“How much farther?” he called over to her.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm. “About a quarter of a mile. We’re almost there.”

He nodded and she noticed that unlike her and Emily, he appeared to be coping with the dust as though it wasn’t any more irritating than a pesky fly.

“I sent Emily up toward the front to get her out of the dust,” she told him.

“I noticed.”

He didn’t say more. Rose didn’t expect him to, but something about the expression on his face made her gaze linger longer than it should have. Suddenly his eyes softened and she felt at that moment it was just him and her against the world.

As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “We’re going to get through this, Rose. The both of us.”

Maybe they would, she thought. But what would it be like once the rain eventually came, the debt was finally paid and the two of them went back to simply being neighbors again? She’d probably never see him after that.

The thought should have comforted her, even given her something to look forward to. But strangely enough she felt bothered by the idea. Although she couldn’t understand why. Harlan wasn’t her type. No man was her type. She’d do well to remember that.

By the time the three of them left Rose’s cattle safely secured on fresh pasture, it was noon. Harlan suggested they eat lunch before starting the task of moving his cattle onto Bar M land.

Down by the river, Rose found a smooth spot beneath a poplar and pulled out the lunch she’d packed in her saddlebags.

As she spread the containers of food on the ground in front of her, Harlan walked up behind her. “You know, you never cease to amaze me.”

The sound of his voice jerked her head up and around. She’d thought he was still tending the horses, not looming over her shoulder. The sight of him standing so close set her heart pounding heavily.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, trying her best to sound casual.

A faint smile tugged at his mouth as he looked down at her dusty face. She wasn’t comfortable in his company. He’d known that the moment he’d walked up to her yesterday evening and she’d introduced herself. Her voice had been cool, yet her glances had been shy. Now the more Harlan was around her, the more he wondered why she wasn’t married. She must still be in her early twenties, and when she looked at him with her clear gray eyes, he got the impression that she was far more innocent than her years.

“I never expected you to have your lunch with you.”

Frowning, she turned her attention to the sandwich in her hand. “I take food out with me every day. I never know when I’ll be too far away from the ranch house to make it back for lunch. Besides, it’s always wise to at least carry a thermos of water or some sort of drink with you in this country.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. He sank to the ground a few feet away from her and leaned his back against a half-dead cottonwood. “Most women wouldn’t be so prepared. Hell, most women would be lost out here like this. But you seem right at home in the saddle, herding cows.”

She bit into a ham sandwich and told herself not to look at him. She didn’t like it when her senses went haywire. And that’s what the sight of him did to her, she realized. It crippled her brain. “I was born on this ranch, Harlan. I am home, here.”

He drew up one knee and rested his forearm across it. As he watched Emily splash in the river with Amos, he thought about the home he’d left in east Texas, the wife he’d buried there and the home he’d tried to build here.

The Flying H had most everything they needed. A fairly nice house and several barns. Cattle and horses to work the place, cats and dogs for pets, two vehicles to get where they needed to go and a regular pew at church on Sunday.

It was a seemingly normal household. Yet the place had never felt exactly like home to Harlan. And now he knew why. It was missing a woman. Others had pointed the problem out to him before, but he’d blindly refused to see it. He hadn’t wanted to see anything except the memories of his wife. The way it had been with her and the way he’d wished it could have been now.

But Rose had opened his eyes. How or why, Harlan couldn’t figure. Nor did he know what, if anything, he was going to do about it.

“You like ranching, or would you prefer to be teaching in a classroom?” Harlan asked as he pulled a sandwich from his own saddlebag.

“I like being needed,” she answered, then glanced over to his face. His expression told her he didn’t quite understand.

She gestured with her hand to the land around them. “Before Daddy passed away, he had men to take care of all this. There was no need for me to ride fence, spread feed and hay, doctor sick cows, or search for newborn calves. But that’s all changed.”

The cellophane out of the way, he bit into the sandwich. After he’d swallowed, he asked, “You didn’t feel needed when you were teaching?”

She thought about his question. “Oh, yes. I did. But there’re always other teachers to take your place. There’s no one who can take my place here on the ranch,” she told him, then with a little mocking laugh added, “at least, no one who’d work for my salary.”

Emily waded out of the shallow river and joined them in the dappled shade of the trees. Amos followed and before Rose could shoo him away, he shook, spraying water over the three of them.

“I guess he thought we all needed a shower,” Harlan said with wry humor.

Rose wiped at the drops sliding down her chin, then pointed sternly at the dog. “Amos, get over there in the shade and behave or you won’t get the sandwich I brought for you.”

Amos whined in protest, but did exactly what his mistress told him. Emily was more than impressed by the dog’s behavior.

“Gosh, none of our dogs are that obedient. If you tell them to do something, they just ignore you.”

Harlan chuckled. “Sorta like you do me.”

Emily groaned. “Oh Daddy, you’re going to have Rose thinking I’m spoiled. And you know I’m not.”

“Rose can probably figure that out for herself,” Harlan told his daughter. “She used to be a schoolteacher.”

Emily dug into her father’s saddlebag for a sandwich. “Why aren’t you a teacher now? You don’t like kids or something?”

Brushing the crumbs from her fingers, Rose reached for her thermos of lemonade. “I like kids and teaching. But I need to work at home now.”

“A few months ago, Rose’s father died of a heart attack,” Harlan gently explained to Emily. “That’s why she and her sisters are…having a rough time of it right now.”

An achy lump suddenly collected in Rose’s throat. He sounded as if he cared, and that touched her in a way she hadn’t expected it to. Yet she knew she couldn’t afford to get any soft notions about Harlan. Where men were concerned, she always had to be on guard, always be cautious.

Emily looked at Rose with such a sorrowful expression that Rose wanted to take the girl in her arms and hug her tightly.

“Gosh, that’s awful. I know, ‘cause my mother died when I was little. Do you have a mother?”

Rose shook her head and tried to smile. The last thing she wanted to do was appear maudlin or bitter in front of this girl. Emily needed to know that her young life wasn’t ruined because she’d lost her mother. “No. My mother died last year after a long illness.”

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